Quality of vinyl
Back in the day, I used to keep an eye open for imported Japanese pressings of albums, available via mail order from some specialist record stores (from a paper catalogue, via the post - we're talking very-pre-Interweb).
Unlike the LPs that we were used to here in Blightly, the Japanese pressings used better quality vinyl and - crucially - took a lot fewer pressings from a single master. An LP for the UK market could have been pressing number 20,000 from a now well-worn master, whereas the Japanese factories generally discarded a master after around 7,500 pressings.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
